Saturday, July 11, 2015

Population Growth Dramatically Slows But U.N. Keeps Hyping It

Even as Population Growth Dramatically Slows, the U.N.
Keeps Hyping “World Population Day”

By Steven Mosher

On July 11th, the United Nations will celebrate its 26th
World Population Day. The point of this annual exercise is to raise money to
promote abortion, sterilization and contraception among poor and vulnerable
women by alarming us about the dangers of global population growth.

The problem with this narrative is that, in many regions of
the world, the population is declining, not growing. About half the world’s
population lives in “low-fertility” countries, where women have fewer than 2.1
children on average over their lifetimes. Low-fertility countries now include
all of Europe (except Iceland),
the Americas (17
countries), and most of Asia (19
countries). The list of low-fertility countries include China, the United
States, Brazil,
the Russian Federation, Japan and Viet Nam.

In other words, growth rates have dramatically declined from
the late 1960s when the global population grew at a rate of 2.1% each year.
That rate is now about 1% a year. The UN’s low variant projection (historically
the most accurate) indicates that
it will peak at around 8.3 billion in 2050. Even the medium variant projection
shows population growth slowing to 0.1% by the century’s end, and turning
negative beyond 2100. In either case, the population of the world will never
double again.

As these numbers suggest, fertility rates have dipped to
all-time lows. The U.N.’s medium variant projection estimates
that women are now averaging 2.45 children over their reproductive lifetime,
while the low variant pegs this at only 2.05. The global average was 4.97 just
60 years ago. Under either variant, this number will be well under replacement
by century’s end. After all, global replacement fertility—the rate needed to
replace the current generation and prevent population decline—is 2.23 children
per woman over her reproductive lifetime.